Iona College hosted its eighth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity of Westchester and the Interreligious Council of New Rochelle Jan. 22.

More than 50 Iona students joined groups from Holy Family parish in New Rochelle, the New Rochelle High School of Religion and the United Methodist Church in New Rochelle to help Habitat for Humanity. After a send-off reflection breakfast on campus, students headed to Yonkers to help install and repair siding on the Pope Francis House.

“Iona College has been collaborating for years with Habitat for Humanity of Westchester to support the cause of affordable housing,” said Dr. Carl Procario-Foley, director of the college’s Office of Mission and Ministry.

Others students picked up trash, and painted and engaged in beautifying a block on Third Street in Mount Vernon.

Fordham, Archdiocese Partner

In Continuing Education Pilot

Fordham University’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE) has begun to offer continuing education courses online in adult faith formation as part of a pilot program in collaboration with the Archdiocese of New York.

“This is one of the first collaborations at this time between a major Catholic university and an archdiocese to produce these kinds of online classes, and it’s something that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been encouraging bishops and universities to do,” said C. Colt Anderson, dean of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

The adult faith formation curriculum at Fordham is geared toward employees of the archdiocese, catechists and lay leaders who are already working in some capacity with the Church or ministry, Anderson said.

The online program consists of six courses—“Introduction to Catholicism,” “Understanding the Creed,” “Understanding the Holy Scripture,” “Unveiling the Sacraments,” “Moral and Social Teaching” and “Trinity and Christology”—all of which were reviewed and approved by Anderson and the archdiocese’s Office of Adult Faith Formation. Each course runs for six weeks, and there are plans to offer two courses for the fall, spring and summer semesters.

“The courses are not just one long, continuous talking head video or audio,” Anderson said. “Instead, each lecture is about 7- to 12-minutes long, which means that students can participate at whatever rate they want. They can choose one lecture a day or do them all at once. It gives them maximum flexibility.” The program began on Feb. 6 with an introductory course on Catholicism.

Mount St. Mary College

Students Go ‘Red’

Even though it might have looked like an early Valentine’s Day celebration, students at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh “went red” on Feb. 3 for a different reason: to raise awareness about heart disease.

In 2003, the American Heart Association (Go Red For Women) along with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute began “National Wear Red Day” to increase awareness about heart disease and to raise funds to fight it.

Students at Mount St. Mary raised $500 in donations for the cause. That money will go toward educational programs about the risks for heart disease and stroke and for research regarding increasing cardiovascular health.